Interview with Hamilton Keithley

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Interview with Hamilton Keithley, by Debra Bowers, Harford County Library, June 30, 1994.
BOWERS:
KEITHLEY:
I'm Debra Bowers, and I'm sitting here with Hamilton Keithley of 29 Brooks Road in Bel Air. His family is well known for having Keithley's Jewelers in Bel Air for quite a time. Mr. Keithley, where were you born? I see you're a lifelong resident of Bel Air. Tell me if you were born here, and if so, what it was like growing up here in your early childhood.
Well, I was born on Pennsylvania Avenue at home, delivered by a doctor in Forestville. The house where I was born is now a parking lot, across from
's Cleaners. There was a yellow two-story house there. Mom and Dad lived in an apartment there. And then -- I don't remember this, except what I was told and pictures. But we moved over on Cortland Street, right beside where Wes' Taxis used to be. Wes used to take me for a ride in the taxi when I was just a little infant -- taking people around. And then we moved out around the Dalhaven area, and rented a house out there
I think it was in 1934, I believe -- 1933 or 1934
he bought the house at 101 West Broadway, and I lived there. So in sixty-four years, I've travelled
two-and-a-half blocks.
DB: [laughs]
[laughs]
HK: It's right down the street. Some of the memories of growing up in Bel Air was a small community. You couldn't do anything wrong because it got before you did. Your parents were waiting for you. [laughs]
DB: [laughs]
HK: I do remember as a kid, growing up at 104 West Broadway that the streets were dirt, and I remember kind of when they put the sewer in down there. I thought that hole was the that they
in place because I wanted to spend all my time in there. [laughs] I think I got a few lickings for getting down in there. You look back down six or seven years old, maybe. You look back down and you hear it's dangerous. You hear about people getting trapped in caves. But to a seven year old child, that probably means nothing.
DB: The ditch was when they were putting in the road or putting in the water and sewer?
HK: Putting in the water and sewer before they put the road in. It wasn't blacktop. It was still dirt.
DB: That was in the twenties or the thirties? HK: Oh, in the thirties sometime.
DB: What year were you born? HK: I was born in 1930.
DB:
HK:
DB:
So this would have been before 1930. It was 1937 or 1938, probably.
You say the streets were dirt?
HK: Yes. Down on Broadway. DB: On Broadway it was dirt?
HK: Yes. Broadway and Williams Street were dirt. DB: But Main Street was paved in the thirties?
HK: Oh, I'm sure. Yes. DB: And Bond Street.
HK: Yes. I'm sure Gordon Street was paved, too. DB: But all of the side streets were still dirt?
HK: Yes. This place here orchard. [laughs]
Hyde Park -- was an property. And those
houses back there were on That was part of the O'Neill property. The houses up on this end -- Mrs. McCommiss -- Mary McCommiss, I think her name was -- she was down here on Williams Street.
She ran a little kindergarten, and Bill Foster and Bill Finney and 's daughter, Ann, and
Dennis -- we went to Mrs. McCommiss'
before we went to school. a long time ago. [laughs]
So they had kindergarten That had to be in 1935.
She gave us our head start.
DB: Well, that program was around.
HK: Oh, sure. I don't know whether it used to teach us
anything, or to get us away from our parents. [laughs]
DB: [laughs]
HK: That could have been a possibility, too. They wanted to get rid of us.
DB: So you remember before Howard Park was built then. HK: Oh, yes. Yes. We used to go sledding up here.
There was nothing up here but horses. Mr. Kelly had horses in here.
DB: This was Mr. Kelly's farm, and he is the one who
owned built
the property where the Bel Air Town Center is now, right?
HK:
No. The Town Center -- that was
Kelly
owned the mansion up here.
DB:
HK:
Oh, okay. Oh, you mean ?
Right.
DB: Oh, okay. That Mr. Kelly.
HK: Right.
DB: I see.
And this was all his property in here.
HK: Beat owned the Town Center.
DB: That's right. Okay. So you were living at 104 West
Broadway
HK: Right.
when Howard Park was an orchard and a farm.
DB: Once you began to go to school -- you actually went
to Bel Air --
HK:
DB:
HK:
DB:
Elementary and High School. Elementary and High School. Right.
Do you remember coming home from elementary school, and what you used to do, and what was there to do?
HK: Well, yes. I grew up during World War II, and Joe Foster and Bill Finney and Earl Hawkins and
McLean and Danny O'Neill -- we used top play Army. We used to play war.
DB: [laughs]
HK: The Germans and the Americans and the Japanese -­ whatever. And, of course, the Ma & Pa Railroad ran down there, and we used to go down in Kelly's woods and have wars. With homemade weapons and toy guns and whatever. At one time -- we were probably a little older then. We were probably twelve or thirteen years old -- it was probably 1943 or somewhere around there -- somebody came up with some dynamite caps, and I don't know who. And we would make real hand grenades. Kind of stupid if you think of it, but these were very realistic and they made a lot of noise. We used to walk to school -- it was around three or four blocks. The U Tree Inn was where Harford Mutual is now. We used to cut through there. We'd cut through Wheeler's
KEITHLEY 6
Lumber Yard. Wheeler's Lumber Yard was behind the Presbyterian Church, and we used to cut up through there. We used to go through that lumber yard and play in the lumber, for which we were chased out every time.
DB: [laughs]
HK: Fortunately nobody was ever hurt. But Chief Mack only he wasn't a chief then -- used to be the crossing guard out there occasionally. He'd escort us across the street. Most of the time there wasn't anybody. That was in the later years. We'd walk to school. We went home for lunch, and we'd walk back. Most of the time, Joe Foster and Bill Fey -- we lived within a block of each other, so we hung out together. Joe is actually four days older than I am, which he never let me forget.
DB: [laughs]
HK: But anyhow, basically we entertained ourselves. We played football or hide & seek -- these kind of things. There wasn't any parks and recreation. We didn't do -- at that time I would say a lot of exploring around town. Yes, we might walk up town. But we didn't go out in the other neighborhoods or towns. We stayed in our own neighborhood primarily. We played ball. And we played army and we rode our
bicycles. You know, this kind of thing. It was probably a great time to grow up in Bel Air.
Probably one of the best times.
DB: This was in the early 1950s? HK: Well, the forties.
DB: Late forties and early fifties?
HK: Yes. Late forties. I would say in the thirties and forties. Bel Air was a real small town. Almost everybody knew everybody. Which had its advantages and disadvantages. You couldn't do anything wrong because if you did you got told on. You got home before you did. But you also watched out for them. Because the people knew you. There wasn't a lot of traffic. You could cross Main Street or Bond Street without looking because you could hear a car coming. And you could ride your bike safely -- even as a kid
-- because people watched out for you. It was a sleepy little town. Now, of course, as we grew up to be teenagers in the late forties -- 1946, 1947, 1948 -- all we wanted to do was get out of Bel Air. [laughs]
DB: [laughs]
HK: Because there wasn't anything to do. Bel Air had no
-- there was one movie.
DB: One movie house.
HK: It had maybe two features a week or one feature a week. So there wasn't anything to do. You went to the movies, you were finished for the week.
DB: [laughs] What about soda fountains and things like that?
HK: We hung out primarily, I guess, at Richardson's Drug
Store, although we used to go to they had a soda fountain, too.
DB: Were they the only two?
because
HK: They were the only two. Well, the drive-ins.
Rubin's Drive-In. We used to hang out at Rubin's Drive-In some, too. But basically, I guess, we hung out in town at Richardson's Drug Store.
DB: And they didn't chase you out of there for being a rowdy bunch of teenagers? [laughs]
HK: Well, we weren't rowdy. We'd sit there, and we slowly bought our nickel Cokes and drank a lot of Coke sometimes, and stayed there for a little while. But then it was a changing group, too, because some of us would stay longer than others, and we'd get together and break-up and go out and walk around and come back. This kind of thing. But I don't think we were rowdy. I don't remember being rowdy. And we could stand in front of the drug store, too, and watch the girls walk down the street -- or people --
and talk to them. Other peers -- associates, friends, whatever -- would walk by. Sometimes they'd stop, and sometimes they were going some place and keep going. The biggest night in town, of course, was Friday and Saturday nights. Saturday night was probably the biggest night. Main Street was pretty crowded on Saturday nights.
DB: What were people doing on Saturday nights? HK: Shopping.
DB: Shopping?
HK: Yes. Because Main Street was stores. DB: Clothing stores?
HK: Well, clothing stores, five & ten, grocery stores
this kind of thing. You see news reels or movies or whatever on stores that are -- they showed one where people used to walk in, and the guy behind a counter gets stuff off the shelf -- this was Bel Air. [laughs]
DB: Right.
HK: You got waited on. There was the A&P store up there. Mr. Patton was the manager. It had regular
, and you didn't go in and do your own shopping. They waited on you and brought your groceries. Today it would never work because there are too many people in [laughs] I
worked at the Acme. I started there, I think, in 1947, as a checker. I think I worked there -- I don't know maybe three months, and I went in the Service. But Main Street -- when I was a little kid on Main Street, there was Price, which was a clothing store. Later on it became Lizzy Nagel, and I think they were a fine store for televisions and this kind of thing. But Main Street was loaded with stores. had a grocery store on there.
DB: Where was that? What block was that on?
HK: Georgetown are souvenirs. DB: There was a grocery store there?
HK: Grace's Grocery Store for years. Of course, The Hub was there, and next door was Walker's Five & Ten.
DB: I remember those.
HK: Harford Hardware is now on the corner of Main and Pennsylvania Avenues. Wayne Dennis was the manager of that. We used to go there and by BBs for our BB guns, or by a BB gun. But there were a lot of stores. Carlton's was down on Main Street -- on South Main Street.
DB: What was that?
HK: That was a ladies clothing store. We didn't go in there. We walked past it many times, but we didn't go in. Next to that -- I don't know what was in
there before Haynes Shoe Store, but Haynes had a shoe store in 1947, 1948, 1949. He sold Buster Brown. He was from Baltimore and he had a shoe store in there. And, of course, of Portland Hardware. But it was back then, who was there. I don't remember going in there a lot to by BBs and so forth. I think we might have
been it.
DB: [laughs]
HK: Bob
in there. Wayne Dennis put up with
went into a lot of , like
tools or nails or screws and stuff. It was the own town hardware store. You know, it had a big old rack up there with nails and screws and things.
Everything was out and open.
DB: This was where? At Main?
HK: That's where the Hankins Building is now, up there, across from the court house, beside the county office building. In other words, that's the Hankins Building. You know that red brick building, where
Jewelers is, and the printers. On the corner of Main and Cortland.
DB: Oh, yes. That's the Clark Turner Building, I believe.
HK: Okay. Clark Turner. It's in that building.
DB:
HK:
Right.
That was , which later became Portland Hardware, and they moved it later here. But beside Richardson's Drug Store used to be Koppel's Shoe Repair.
DB: Before Beta Shoe. Or on the other side?
HK: On the other side. Where the podiatrists are now, was Richardson's Drug Store. And right beside that was a little store there called Koppel's Shoe Shine, and they did shoe repair. And thing.
His daughter, I think -- Molly Koppel -- I went to school with. And there were just a lot of little stores. We had Rexall Store. Mr. had a cut-
rate store. Whatever kind of thing up on Main Street, around where
he used to be is
in there, and he had a fire or something, and he moved down where roughly -- I don't know who is in there now. But Johnson's Furniture. Johnson was down there. It was around the Goodwill Store -- in that vicinity.
DB: Oh, yes.
HK: It was a little yellow house. And he had a cut-rate store in there. It had a yard, a tree the whole thing. You walked into really a house that he converted into a little store.
DB:
HK:
Like general merchandise?
Well, he sold cigarettes and medicines, and probably ice cream and pop. You know, this kind of thing.
DB: And that was Mr. Fink's store?
HK: Yes. Johnny Fink -- his son -- he lives down here on Bel Air Road.
DB: Oh, okay.
HK: But Bel Air was, I would say, a good place to grow up. I think probably most memories except for spankings, were probably happy memories. [laughs]
DB: [laughs]
HK: We didn't get in trouble per se.
kids had
bike wrecks and we got hurt, and we probaBly got in fights, I guess. Probably more at school than any place else. But as far as getting into trouble trouble, no.
DB: Do you remember Howard Park being built and what
that was like?
HK: No, I really don't, and I'll tell you why. Because I got out of the Service, came home, and the Korean war started. Paul Matthews -- I was running around at that time probably with Paul Matthews and Rich Terry and Phil Glen. I don't remember who else at that time. It wasn't Joe Foster or Bill Fenningman.
I was
growing up. A different group of
people. Willard Smithson, George Hopkins. And we used to go to the Coliseum in Baltimore and watch wrestling or go to the movies or these kinds of things. And they all got drafted for Korea. I didn't have to go because I'd already been in. But I got lonesome, and like an idiot, I went out and enlisted. [laughs]
DB: [laughs]
HK: So I went overseas in January of 1952. And I came home in June of 1954. And when I left here in
52
51.
actually, I left Bel Air, so to speak, in But I was home on leave you know, passes -
whatever. I could walk down Main Street and say
llo em.
to everybody by sight -- by name, most of Not everybody, but most everybody by name.
en I came home in 1954 and walked down Main
reet, I didn't know anybody.
that right?
didn't know a soul. I walked down Main Street and
dn't see anybody I knew.
had changed that much in two years?
ght. And they built Howard Park. And that was
sically what it was.
ey were all new residents from Howard Park that u had never seen before.
HK: And the county was golden. Right. The county was golden. Howard Park was not here when I left. It was an overnight -- to me -- what happened to Bel Air?
DB: Within two years Howard Park was built and you came home and the population had expanded.
HK: Not this part of it -- the lower section. And the population had started expanding, and I didn't know anybody. Well, yes, in the stores I knew people.
But they had a store. But people on the street I didn't recognize.
DB: How did that make you feel?
HK: Well, I don't know how I felt. You want to know the truth? I don't remember how I felt. Astounded. I do remember that. But it was hard to believe that the county had changed that the town had changed that much in that short period of time. So, of course, I went into stores and said hello to people I knew. You know, this kind of thing.
DB: They were still around.
HK: They were still there. It's rather amazing that the people I went to high school with and graduated
of them are still around. I don't see them often, but they're still here in the county.
There's a lot left, naturally. But, then, there's
an awful lot still here, too. But it was rather a shock. You know, like talking about that memories. We were in Boy Scouts, and they had a
thing in the paper not long ago about Boy Scots some fifty years ago. God! I knew everybody's name but one. I didn't know this one guy. I think his name was White. I didn't remember him at all. Everybody else I knew. I remembered all of the other people.
He was the only one I did not remember. No picture nothing. It just didn't come. Of course, fifty years ago is a long time.
DB: Right. Right.
HK: And he could have been in the troop for a short period of time because we did have a lot of military people that went to school here. Because Aberdeen, too, were big during the war. A lot of people there. And they all didn't go to Aberdeen or Edgewood School. They'd come to Bel Air a lot of times. I don't know why. Probably where they lived. Where they had housing. But it was one of those things. George Miller -- he used to have a farm down here, back on Patterson Mill Road, and we used to have Boy Scout meetings over at the fire house. The fire house then was on Main Street, where used to be -- that alley, coming down
Main Street. Forty-something North Main Street. In that general area. There's at-shirt shop or something there now, or there was at-shirt shop. I don't know what's in there now. I don't walk down Main Street now. But as you're coming down Main Street, you come past Lutz', and past the old church.
DB: Right.
HK: And on down, and then there's an alley that goes in.
It goes out, and comes DB: Right.
HK: That building right on that side -- that used to be the fire house, and then it was Hollander's, which was an automotive store. And above that was a room where we had our Boy Scout meetings.
DB: Okay. Was that when you were a teenager, or younger?
HK: Boy Scouts you had to be twelve, so probably twelve
to fourteen or fifteen years old. I think we moved out of there, and might have gone over -- right about where Strawberry Basket is or was. Actually, that's not there anymore now. The antique place is now there. There was an old stone Methodist church that was closed, and we used to have our meetings in the basement of that. Only it was a Methodist
church then, I think.
DB: That church isn't there anymore? HK: Oh, no. is there now. DB: I don't remember that.
HK: You see, they the house that I was born in, and I told them that if I ever became rich, I was going to buy Bel Air and tear it all down.
DB: [laughs]
HK:
in the first place. just destroy the town."
"I'll fix you. I'll
DB: [laughs]
HK: Bel Air has had a lot of changes.
DB: A lot of changes. That's right.
HK: And not necessarily for the better. Not necessarily for the better. Not totally for the worst, but not
necessarily for the better. People don't know
people. really,
People don't know their neighbors now,
to a large degree. Including me. I know my
imminent neighbors -- immediate neighbors. But, you
know, you get ten houses down the street I don't
know are.
who they are. And I don't know who their kids And it used to be you did. But you don't
anymore.
DB: Is that because there are so many houses and so many
people? Or because of our lifestyles that have
changed?
HK: It's probably our lifestyles. Probably television has got a lot to do with it. People don't go outside like they did. We didn't have anything to do but listen to radio or play checkers with Mom. You know, that's not a lot of fun.
DB: [laughs]
HK: So we spent our time outside, and you spent your time mainly with your neighbors because you were outside. And children had a tendency to go -- like my wife gets upset sometimes when kids go running through the yard. Well, we ran through everybody's yards. So I don't get too upset about that. Yes, if they break something -- that's different. But just running through the yards -- I mean, we did it when we were kids. People don't go for that too much anymore, though. People don't really like that, mostly. And when I was a kid growing up, we never thought anything about it. We didn't go through people's gardens. You know, we respected property. But to go through somebody's yard -- hey, it was just like the street. What's the difference? But, of course, it was a smaller community, and you did know the people, too, you see?
DB: Yes. It could have been your best friends, or
whatever.
HK: Right. And we did a lot of playing in each other"s houses. You know, you could name everybody on your street, who their kid were, what they did, where they want to church -- you know, the whole thing.
But it was a closer community then, too. And also, probably, a more stable community because people didn't move around. People move now. They upgrade.
You know,
DB: Right.
houses, and move.
HK: They get transferred kind of thing. And
jobs or whatever -- and this people move in. And
people are not and I guess I'm the same way, too -- people are not as friendly as they were.
DB: Yes.
HK: You might meet somebody on the street, and if you know that they live there you say, "Hi." But you keep going. You don't talk to them. You say, "Hi," and keep going.
DB: [laughs]
HK: And probably a lot of it is lifestyle, because we're busier. Or supposedly we're busier.
DB: I think we are. Yes.
HK: Well, it's all the labor saving devices we have that we have to keep up with. (laughs]
DB: [laughs] Right.
HK: You see, we both , you know? What they kept saying is the rotary motor. And those people who have a power motor were rich. We had push mowers. Real Craftsman push mowers. the grass. But there wasn't the things to do that there are to do today. People look at the lifestyle that we had then today and say, "My God, those people were poor." And, I guess, we were, if you stop and think about all the things that people have today that they take for granted. Which we didn't have.
You see, when my parents moved down on Broadway, it still had a , and they in 1933. It started in 1937 or 1938 somewhere in that area -- they put sewer lines in and water lines in down there. They had a water line. They had one water line that ran from Gordon and Williams Street, down there, to serve about three houses. You see, that was all open. 's Funeral Home. There wasn't anything down there except a couple of houses. And the old house. And that was it. There wasn't anything else down there. And then later on, the factory was built there. That used to be a tomato field. Mr. Matthews had corn he raised in there and sold. And where 's
- - -
KEITHLEY 22
Funeral Home was, was a dirty old field we used to play in sometimes -- not all the time. But it wasn't level, so we didn't play ball in there. We played ball in the yards or whatever.
to the school, and play over there. We used to go where the school -- the school used to be open all summer. Janitors or whatever were in there, and we used to go and shoot basketball. And we were allowed to go in and do that. That way you didn't have to go ask permission. We'd just go in the gym.
It was open. We went in, shot basketball. But we
didn't do anything except shot basketbal1, left, and
went
home. But it wasn't like the school was -- you
can't
DB: Right.
come in here without permission.
Nowadays --
HK: We didn't vandalize it, either.
DB: Right. You knew they'd find out who it was, huh?
[laughs]
HK: Sure.
[laughs] You know, people talk about going
to the schools, you see? Where the Board of
Education is now was the elementary school. And
where the elementary school is was the old high
school. down.
That was the elementary school they tore And they tore down the
elementary school. And I said, "No, they didn't.
They tore the high school down." You see, to her it was elementary school because she was an outsider.
It was really the high school.
DB: Right.
HK: Because we just knew from one building to the other. And we only had eleven grades. Seven elementary and four high school.
DB: When did they build the new high school out here?
HK: High School, I think was built in 1951 or 1952 somewhere. I graduated in 1947. And they had a graduating class. Let's see. I think my brother was supposed to graduate maybe in 1951. He was three years behind me. 1950 or 1951. And he caught twelve years. He graduated. [laughs] So he's three years younger than I am, and so he got the twelve years, and he got an extra year. I guess it was 1950 or 1951. They had a very small graduating class because that was only transfers in
[end of side one]
DB: the Service in 1951. And that was for Korea.
HK; That was for Korea. Right. I was in Korea. And then I cil,file home, and I was discharged. I got out
three months early. I went in in October of 1951, and anybody who was over there they gave you a chance to get out three months early, and so I got out in June of 1954. I came home and I had a couple of jobs looking for a job. Then I went to work for a company known as Retail Credit
now. And I worked for them for fifteen years, but I also worked in my dad's store part-time.
DB: And your dad's store was Keithley's Jewelers. HK: Keithley's Jewelers.
DB: That was on Main Street?
HK: Yes. I worked in there, fixing clocks. Dad was a watch maker, clock maker, jeweler. And fixing watches and repairing jewelry was about all he could do himself. The clocks got pushed back they didn't get done. Once in a while he would get something done, but he was always so busy he didn't get it done. That was all. And so I decided -- I had worked on clocks as a kid, and I decided that
teach me how to fix clocks right, if
he's willing to do that, and he said he was. And so he taught me how to repair clocks, and I started to call these people up and asked if they wanted their clocks fixed, and some of their clocks had been in there twenty years.
DB:
HK:
DB:
In your father's shop?
And they were still waiting for him. Oh! [laughs]
HK: And they said, "Sure." I don't know. It took me
about two years to get him all caught up without even taking any in. He had that many clocks hanging around in there.
DB: Wow.
HK: There were clocks in there that had dust on them that deep.
DB: Oh, my God.
HK: You know, they hadn't been moved. Just sitting on a shelf.
DB: Well, people had a lot of patience in those days.
[laughs]
HK: Yes, I think they did. But anyhow, I worked in there, and then I came down with a
disease, and I couldn't work on the other job. And
so I went in the store and worked on clocks all the time. And waited on customers. Until Dad closed in 1976.
DB: Now, where was the store?
HK: 50 North Main Street. Diagonally across from the Armory.
DB: Oh, across from the Armory.
HK:
DB:
It was where
The Goodwill Building?
HK: No. The Insurance Agency was in there, and I forgot
what's in there now. thing is?
DB: Yes.
HK: Next door to that. he was in the
You know where the Bon-Bon Dog
A chiropractor was upstairs, and
He moved down there
in 1946, and before that he was on Office Street.
DB: Who? Your father?
HK: My dad's jewelry store. Yes. He was on Office Street, down around where Johnson Company is. Up this way a little bit. He rented it from Johnson. He was there -- he started the store down there, I think, in about 1928. Somewhere in that area, in the middle of the Depression.
DB: And it was just a jewelry store then?
HK: Right. It basically started off as watch repair.
He went to Bonus Technical School and became a watch
maker, and he took six months of jewelry repair, and
he came down and opened up the store. He worked in
Washington, D.C. for a while, learning his trade.
And once he felt he was confident to do work
a master watch maker, he was learning more. After
he got out of school, he was still learning. He
came here and opened up his store, and basically started off as watch repair, and he added jewelry slowly, over the years. In 1946 he moved down on Main Street because they built the post office up this way the town was moving that way.
But the town didn't move that way.
DB: [laughs]
[laughs]
HK: The town really stayed almost in a couple of blocks.
It really did. And then Mr. Preston -- he used to have a store where the Red Fox is now.
DB: I remember that.
HK: Right. And then they moved out the other way. DB: [laughs]
HK: You know, literally walking to
Street. I was Preston's son.
Anyhow, I was talking to him the other night. We used to go into Preston's and buy model airplanes for ten cents. Balsam wood with rubber bands. And we used to go up there and get balsam airplanes.
They would be ten cents a piece. Had to buy glue, and we used to build airplanes. buy the glue, kids sniff them.
DB: [laughs]
HK: It's a changed world, you know? It really is. DB: Yes.
HK: I mean, we never even thought of that. You know, the worst thing growing up was probably booze, and we weren't allowed to drink, so you didn't. I mean, that was all. We didn't do a lot of things. That doesn't mean we didn't want to. Bel Air the kids growing up in Bel Air primarily, I think not all kids, but most of them -- were pretty naive. I think we were. We led a sheltered life. We probably did. But there wasn't television. There was radio. I don't remember much about listening to news on the radio. You know, one man's
family in the shadow, and Things like this. , the All American Boy. I do remember the parents coming outside, and I had know idea what day it was on, but anyhow, about World War II started. I don't remember VE Day, but I remember VJ Day because I was in Lancaster. I was going to engraving school in Lancaster, and I was in the movies, and the movies stopped, and , and they came out and announced that the war was over, and people were going crazy. Kissing everybody and hugging everybody, and jumping up and down. The street cars were stopped, and the traffic was stopped. I was like, "The war is over! So what'?" But then I wasn't involved in it, either. I was
fifteen years old. And that changed your perspective.
DB: Right.
HK: If you're in the military and you're going overseas, a chance of getting killed -- this kind of thing.
You see, I was like three years later having to go.
DB: Right.
HK: And so that changes your perspective. It does. DB: You were in engraving school in Lancaster?
HK:
Yes, I went to engraving.
Technical School and took
DB: That was in Lancaster?
HK: Right. For three summers I didn't take summertime off. I went to engraving school in the summertime, and took I didn't like it, but probably because I was forced to do it. Children resent what they're forced to do.
DB: Wasn't your father interested in having you do jewelry work?
HK:
He wanted me engravings.
the first step was to take
DB: Oh, I see.
HK: Then the plans were to go on and take jewelry repair, and take watch making, and follow in his footsteps. And he envisioned a chain of stores.
DB:
HK:
Oh, is that right?
Right. And he found out that it was not going to happen. [laughs] I was never interested in repairing watches. I hated watches.
DB: [laughs]
HK: Absolutely hated watches. And I still don't like watches. All a watch does is tell me what time it is and just run, and that's it. I did learn to like
well, I actually love old clocks. I find it very interesting to be able to take an antique clock
even like a wooden ruben clock, which is a hundred and sixty or seventy years old, and repair it, and it will still do the same job that it did then -- as
year.
DB: Yes.
HK: But, you see, people don't remember the old watches.
The old mechanical wind-up watches -- you had to wind them every day. And people used to
every day. Because they were all
So if it's off a minute in a day, that's seven minutes a week. Now, when they came out with automatic winds, they had to make them a little more accurate because you don't wind your watch for a week, and you look at it and all of a sudden, you're five minutes slow or fast -- that's a lot of time.
DB: Right.
HK: So they had to make time keeping a little better.
And they did. They were still off. They still were not on time keeping. People -- they're watches used to spend a lot of time in the shop. People used to break a lot of watches. They got dirty and they had to be cleaned. But they had a lot of holes in them. You know, around the stem -- it had a pretty big hole in there, and a lot of dirt went in there.e
DB: Right.
HK: They used to get them wet, they got rusty, and they used to drop them and they'd break the staff. The main spring used to break. You see, a lot of things
used to happen to watches. They'd break the crystal. They were all glass. No plastic. They'd break the crystal.
DB: Nowadays you just buy a new one.
HK: Yes. Well, back then -- you see, I don't know
price-wise, how watches compare nowadays. Back then you probably couldn't buy a watch for less than
$29.95 or $39.95 for a reasonable watch. And as I remember, that's
DB: Yes.
HK: Even in the forties and fifties. In the forties you could buy They weren't available.
DB: You could not buy a watch during the war?
HK: You could not buy a watch. Dad wasn't even taking -
- he was so backlogged during the war -- I can remember this. He wouldn't take anything in for six months. "Come back in six months and we'll see where we are then." He wouldn't take anything. He had six months work facing him that he couldn't get done.
DB: For watch repair and jewelry repair?
HK: Right. Watch repair, mostly. Because you couldn't buy them -- you had to fix them. And a lot of people I want have a
watch, or this kind of thing. So they probably got
theirs done ahead of time, maybe, which might not have been right, but then again, they probably needed it, too.
DB: Right.
HK: The amazing thing is -- I read some place in 1941 there were thirty-three thousand watch makers in the United States. 1941. I think in 1987 or somewhere in that area, there were ten thousand watch makers in the United States. Did I tell you
DB: Oh, sure. The quartz movement, I guess.
HK: If you go out today and try and find a good watch maker -- really, they're hard to find. You see, they're scarce. There are a good many clock makers left. I don't know how good they are. Some are good and some aren't. But basically, I think -- you know, when I fix a clock I fix it right or I don't fix it. Dad's theory was always to fix things right and stand behind it, and I always did that, too.
It's a funny thing, you know? You don't ever want to be your parent.
DB: [laughs]
HK: And one day you look in the mirror, and you are, okay? [laughs] That's true.
DB: So you worked with your father for a good while.
HK: Yes. About fifteen years.
DB:
HK:
Repairing watches? Clocks. I fixed clocks.
DB: And then your father closed his shop in 1976?
HK: Yes. He moved home, and so did I. And he died in 1978. He had a heart attack and died. And I had to go in there and put about a hundred watches together. I didn't fix the watches. I put them together and gave the watch back. That's it. And there were things that needed parts. They either had to be made or try and find them, or whatever. I put them back together and got rid of them. I wasn't I fixed clocks at home. And then I got into building clocks. And I like that a whole lot better than fixing clocks. Make my own designs on a clock.
them. If they don't want to buy it, it's okay, too. I don't build clocks to sell clocks.
DB: It's a hobby for you.
HK: If somebody comes in and says, "I want you to build me a clock." I'll say, "What do you want'?" I'll build them a clock. If somebody sees a clock I got and they want to buy it -- fine, I'll sell it to them. But, no. I don't build clocks. I eat business and say, "Oh, I can sell these or whatever." I build clocks for my own fun and edification, or whatever.
DB: I see.
HK: Ego, or whatever you want to say. It give me something to do, and I like it, and I enjoy it. I don't always like to build the same thing. I like to build things a little different. So really, every clock is slightly different than another one.
DB: Do you deal with just the works, or do you build cabinets, too'?
HK: I build the cabinets. I don't build the movement.
I buy mechanical and this kind of thing. I just do the woodwork. I build the cases.
DB: Grandfather clocks and mantle or shelf clocks?
HK: Mostly mantle or schoolhouse type clocks. Probably more mantles than schoolhouses because mantles are a
little easier to build. Schoolhouses are harder. I never had the desire to build a grandfather clock.
Number one, it takes a long time.
DB: [laughs]
HK: And number two, the only one I like to build -- I don't think I could do it. I don't have the tools for it.
DB: You don't have to be a woodworker to do that.
HK: Well, yes. You got to have specific tools to do it.
You have to have a shaker, and a few things like that. It's a lot of money for the tools. I was going to build a clock one time, and when I found out it was going to cost me about twelve thousand dollars for the tools to be able to build the clock, I decided I didn't really want to build one after all.
DB: [laughs] Do you repair clocks?
HK: Yes.
DB: Do people call you and say, "Mr. Keithley, please repair my clock?"
HK: Yes. And I still fix a few. You know, twenty or
something. I don't do house calls anymore. I quit
It's a funny thing. After you've been fixing clocks as long as I have, there are clocks that are hard to fix. I know those clocks -- there's no doubt about it. But then again, if you use a little common sense and the skills that you've learned and this kind of thing -- they're not really that difficult to fix. It's time-consuming. It's like some guy once told me, "Oh, they're not hard to take apart." I said, "Oh, no. I take them apart and put them back together." [laughs]
DB: [laughs]
HK: I said, "Putting them back together is the secret." [laughs]
DB: What kind of clock is it in the court house tower?
How does that work?
HK: I have no idea. DB: It must be huge.
HK: I think it's probably electric, isn't it? DB: Probably.
HK: Did they restore to mechanical?
DB: I don't know.
HK:
DB:
You see, I don't know if they have --
I thought maybe they asked you to do it. [laughs]
HK: In all probability, it had mechanical movement at one time. What's in there now, I have no idea.
I'm here occasionally. But what's in the court house now, I have no idea. I don't even know what's in Harford Mutual. That's probably electric, I guess. You see, all the companies that manufacture all the old mechanicals are gone. All the companies in the United States are manufactured clocks are very nearly gone.
DB: Is that right?
HK: Chelsea is still in business, but a Chelsea probably the cheapest Chelsea is about nine hundred dollars. That's why they're gone.
DB: Wow!
HK: So Boston clock companies I think they still make banjo clocks. They sell for about six thousand dollars. There are not a lot of people who would buy that. Hershedi a guy by the name of Klein got -- they only make two grandfather clocks. This style and this style. Sarne clock, but the cases are different. And they're only twenty thousand dollars a piece.
DB: [laughs]
HK:
, but clocks are made -- there are a lot of clock companies that make cases by the movements from Germany. Or the movements from Japan, or whatever it is. Most of the ones that
come up from Japan -- the case and everything -- are made in Japan. And Hamilton makes clocks now. But they don't use solid woods, and they buy Japanese or German movements and put Mr. Danaher down in Falston used to make clocks. And his thing was that he used all hardwood, which is the solid woods.
DB: Right.
HK: Except the back, which was plywood. Well, that's okay because the basic case is solid wood. It's not pressed wood or cardboard or whatever. He bought
German
can almost tell
He made nice clocks. You pick it up, and it's heavy
You pick up the others and they're not.
DB: You repaired some of is clocks?
HK: Oh, yes. I have one downstairs now that needs to be fixed.
DB:
HK:
DB:
HK:
DB:
Now, he's out of business now?
He's been out of business for fifteen years or more. Fifteen years?
Yes. At least.
They made clocks locally, and, I guess, sold a lot of clocks here in Harford County. Do you see them around?
HK: They sold them all over the country. Mr. Daniher
was a wood worker. He made telephone boxes for the telephone. And styrofoam and all this other crap cam along, and they didn't need him anymore. And so he looked around what to do, and I think
Sidwell got him interested in building clocks, and he started building clocks. He went for little magnets that had standard equipment, had a national sales force. And those people started selling, and found him salesmen, and he sold clocks all over the United States. He had a good business.
DB: Selling his clocks or other clocks? HK: His clocks. The ones he built.
DB: He made clocks?
HK: He built the cases, and bought movements and put them in there. Right. They built a lot of clocks. They unionized, and then he closed it. And then it was sold. But anyhow, he eventually went out of business. I think LaRosa, North Carolina came up and bought most of the spare parts and cases and stuff that they had.
so forth.
DB: So there are probably still a lot of Deniger clocks all over Harford County.
HK: around. Yes, there are. And, I guess over a period of time, that there were more, I have no idea whether they will or not, but they probably will -- as time goes on, because antique clocks sometimes bring commanding prices. Antique watches
do, too. But there are not many of them that bring
super, than
super prices. But you can get more for them
DB: Maybe I should go to a sale and get a Deniger clock,
and I'll have a local unique.
HK: Right. Right. But you have to wait. You have to
be patient. Bel Air was an interesting place to
grow bored
up in. I'm sure that as a teenager, we were out of our minds many times in Bel Air.
DB: [laughs]
HK: Because there wasn't anything to do. But we used to
go to movies, or go down to drive-ins in Baltimore -
- this kind of thing.
DB: Was
HK: No.
DB: Did
that a pretty long trip to Baltimore back then?
you go down Route 1, I guess?
HK: Well, you know, the amazing thing about it -- the
only new highways that have been built in my lifetime in Harford County is Route 40 and 95. And Route 40 had to be built before World War II. Probably 1939. 1938, even. Because was built over there in 1939. Route 40 had to be there. So 197, 1938 -- somewhere in there -- Route 40 was built. So the only new highway really, since I was of driving age, is 95. And look what they've done to the population of Bel Air. You still have to drive the same route. But you see, we used to drive to Baltimore and never see a car.
DB: Wow.
HK: Actually made better time then than you do now, even though the cars were old. Because there wasn't any traffic.
DB: Right.
HK: And there was a whole lot less red lights. DB: You went down Route 1, through Cainsville? HK: Well, no. We mostly went down Harford Road. DB: Oh, you took Harford Road?
HK: Yes. We normally went down Harford Road. We drove
down Bel Air Road sometimes
But there was no beltway, you see?
DB: Yes.
into Baltimore.
HK: Harford Road, to us, led to more movies. Depending
on which movie we were going to. If we were going to the movies on Harford Road, we took Harford Road. There used to be a drive-in down there, about where the beltway is now, called Willards. We'd stop in there and get hamburgers and milkshakes. On into Hamilton was the Hot Shop. to thee movies in Hamilton. If we were going to the movies downtown, we went down Bel Air Road, and cut over I guess Park, or whatever it is, and went over to 33rd Street, and then over to one of the one-way streets or North Charles, or whatever, and then shot right downtown. There were movies down there -- I guess on Lexington Street.
Essentially The Hippodrome was down on Street, and we went down there to those
movies.
DB: How often did you do that? Was that a big trip to take?
HK: No, not really. We probably did it -- maybe once a week or once every two weeks. In all probability.
DB: You'd all get together and somebody would drive down?
HK: Yes. Well, we'd have dates. This was in 1947, 1948, 1949. It normally would be double-dates. We had two bucks.
DB: [laughs]
HK: Fifty cents for gas. Movies were less than a dollar, and you could get a hamburger and milkshake for fifty cents. So you didn't need a lot of money to go out.
DB: Right.
HK: And, you know, each one of you had two bucks -- that was enough. On a date you had four dollars -- you could go on a double-date.
DB: So if there wasn't much to do in Bel Air, you just drove to Baltimore.
HK: Yes. And there was not a lot to do in
There really wasn't. On Sundays they used to have football games up here in Hill Road, out there in the field. It was like an athletic association, and they had a football conference.
Our high school people. They used to have softball over behind the old high school and elementary school, and various merchants sponsored softball.
Clothes cleaners had a team. There were a number of outfits that had teams in there, and they used to go down there in the summertime, in the evening, and they'd be playing softball.
DB: Where was this?
HK: This was on the diamond, on Lee Street. The school
DB:
HK:
DB:
is in there now. Right where that elementary school is. That was the diamond on the track. And they used to play softball there. It had lights.
Oh.
We were up-to-date. [laughs]
HK: It took them a long time to get the money for
lights, but they finally got money for lights. That
was The
in the fifties. They had softball down there. forties -- probably 1949 it started. It could
have that
been 1948. I don't remember exactly. But in area. When I went to high school, there was no
football Baseball football.
in high school. It was too dangerous. was in. And track. But there was no
Football is hot today. They had football
out.
not
We used to play football as kids, but it was
organized. But colleges had football, and they
had And
this -- Big Red, I think they called Bel Air. they were men that were playing football.
College, and other men who were not say, they
went to college, but played football. Like football
-- they used to play football. They played down on
the high school grounds sometimes, and they played
at the sometimes. I guess in 1949 and 1950, we went to every there was in Baltimore. We
used to ride the bus to Baltimore. six home games. There were plenty of
seats because they lost every game.e DB: [laughs]
HK: sitting down. But we didn't care, you know? It was something to do.
DB: Right.
HK: That's all. It was something to do. I think in 1950 or 1951 is when television started.
DB: That changed everything, right?
HK: That did. That changed everything. People had plenty of things to do. We'd sit in front of the tube and watch that.
DB: [laughs] Yes. I guess that made a big difference in the lifestyle of every town in the country.
HK: Yes, I think it did. I think that probably was the most profound event in the history of our nation.
Transportation has been one, too. But I think that was the biggest one, in changing our lifestyle, in the fact that we don't know people, and we don't do things that we used to do. I don't think there's probably a sense of community as there once was.
There used to be a strong sense of community. And I don't think that exists anymore. In some people, yes. But I don't think in most people. You see,
some of these -- and I were talking. I said, "I don't really feel a strong sense of community to Bel Air anymore than I did feel." I said, "Why?" I said, "Probably because I don't know people."
That's number one. And number two, it isn't Bel Air anymore, as far as I'm concerned, you see? It's changed drastically. I had to wear a brace when I was down at this office one day, and a doctor was there, and they were talking. They both live here in Harford County, and they were talking about some
housing that was going to be put up, and they were against it. They said, "How do you feel about it?" I said, "I don't know?" They said, "What do you mean you don't know? It's going to make traffic worse, it's going to do this and that." I said, "Hey, you ruined it for me. I want to ruin it for you, too.
DB: [laughs]
HK: I said, "Make it worse." DB: Make it worse! [laughs]
HK: And they said, "You're terrible!" I said, "Wel1,
no." Everybody -- I've seen it in a thousand interviews. Everybody said they wanted to be the last one to in Bel Air and lock the door. And I think that's true. But I unfortunately can't
do that, you see? I said, "We locked the door a long time ago. And nobody would have got in." And I said, "If you probably think about the old county residents -- they all out." Everybody is gone. And I just can't do that. I understand why the county went the way it did because a lot of the parent shad farms. When the kid got the farm, he saw how hard the old man worked, and he wanted nothing to do with it. And I understand that. My dad wanted me to be a jeweler, and I saw how he worked, and I said, "I'm not working like that." You know? He worked until probably two o'clock every morning. He would come home and go to bed.
He might get in bed, say, three o'clock. Get up at nine o'clock or nine-thirty. Mom would open the store. He'd get in the store at ten or ten-thirty. The reason he worked like that -- he'd be in the store all day. He'd come home at, say, six o'clock, have dinner, lay down and take a nap, and, say, seven o'clock or seven-thirty he went back to the store and worked until two o'clock in the morning, because that's when he got the work done. Okay?
And I said, "I'm not working like that!" He worked Saturdays, he worked Sundays. He worked seven days a week. During the war, he used to work all night.
And he did some work for in Baltimore.
End of Interview

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Transcript

Interview with Hamilton Keithley, by Debra Bowers, Harford County Library, June 30, 1994.
BOWERS:
KEITHLEY:
I'm Debra Bowers, and I'm sitting here with Hamilton Keithley of 29 Brooks Road in Bel Air. His family is well known for having Keithley's Jewelers in Bel Air for quite a time. Mr. Keithley, where were you born? I see you're a lifelong resident of Bel Air. Tell me if you were born here, and if so, what it was like growing up here in your early childhood.
Well, I was born on Pennsylvania Avenue at home, delivered by a doctor in Forestville. The house where I was born is now a parking lot, across from
's Cleaners. There was a yellow two-story house there. Mom and Dad lived in an apartment there. And then -- I don't remember this, except what I was told and pictures. But we moved over on Cortland Street, right beside where Wes' Taxis used to be. Wes used to take me for a ride in the taxi when I was just a little infant -- taking people around. And then we moved out around the Dalhaven area, and rented a house out there
I think it was in 1934, I believe -- 1933 or 1934
he bought the house at 101 West Broadway, and I lived there. So in sixty-four years, I've travelled
two-and-a-half blocks.
DB: [laughs]
[laughs]
HK: It's right down the street. Some of the memories of growing up in Bel Air was a small community. You couldn't do anything wrong because it got before you did. Your parents were waiting for you. [laughs]
DB: [laughs]
HK: I do remember as a kid, growing up at 104 West Broadway that the streets were dirt, and I remember kind of when they put the sewer in down there. I thought that hole was the that they
in place because I wanted to spend all my time in there. [laughs] I think I got a few lickings for getting down in there. You look back down six or seven years old, maybe. You look back down and you hear it's dangerous. You hear about people getting trapped in caves. But to a seven year old child, that probably means nothing.
DB: The ditch was when they were putting in the road or putting in the water and sewer?
HK: Putting in the water and sewer before they put the road in. It wasn't blacktop. It was still dirt.
DB: That was in the twenties or the thirties? HK: Oh, in the thirties sometime.
DB: What year were you born? HK: I was born in 1930.
DB:
HK:
DB:
So this would have been before 1930. It was 1937 or 1938, probably.
You say the streets were dirt?
HK: Yes. Down on Broadway. DB: On Broadway it was dirt?
HK: Yes. Broadway and Williams Street were dirt. DB: But Main Street was paved in the thirties?
HK: Oh, I'm sure. Yes. DB: And Bond Street.
HK: Yes. I'm sure Gordon Street was paved, too. DB: But all of the side streets were still dirt?
HK: Yes. This place here orchard. [laughs]
Hyde Park -- was an property. And those
houses back there were on That was part of the O'Neill property. The houses up on this end -- Mrs. McCommiss -- Mary McCommiss, I think her name was -- she was down here on Williams Street.
She ran a little kindergarten, and Bill Foster and Bill Finney and 's daughter, Ann, and
Dennis -- we went to Mrs. McCommiss'
before we went to school. a long time ago. [laughs]
So they had kindergarten That had to be in 1935.
She gave us our head start.
DB: Well, that program was around.
HK: Oh, sure. I don't know whether it used to teach us
anything, or to get us away from our parents. [laughs]
DB: [laughs]
HK: That could have been a possibility, too. They wanted to get rid of us.
DB: So you remember before Howard Park was built then. HK: Oh, yes. Yes. We used to go sledding up here.
There was nothing up here but horses. Mr. Kelly had horses in here.
DB: This was Mr. Kelly's farm, and he is the one who
owned built
the property where the Bel Air Town Center is now, right?
HK:
No. The Town Center -- that was
Kelly
owned the mansion up here.
DB:
HK:
Oh, okay. Oh, you mean ?
Right.
DB: Oh, okay. That Mr. Kelly.
HK: Right.
DB: I see.
And this was all his property in here.
HK: Beat owned the Town Center.
DB: That's right. Okay. So you were living at 104 West
Broadway
HK: Right.
when Howard Park was an orchard and a farm.
DB: Once you began to go to school -- you actually went
to Bel Air --
HK:
DB:
HK:
DB:
Elementary and High School. Elementary and High School. Right.
Do you remember coming home from elementary school, and what you used to do, and what was there to do?
HK: Well, yes. I grew up during World War II, and Joe Foster and Bill Finney and Earl Hawkins and
McLean and Danny O'Neill -- we used top play Army. We used to play war.
DB: [laughs]
HK: The Germans and the Americans and the Japanese -­ whatever. And, of course, the Ma & Pa Railroad ran down there, and we used to go down in Kelly's woods and have wars. With homemade weapons and toy guns and whatever. At one time -- we were probably a little older then. We were probably twelve or thirteen years old -- it was probably 1943 or somewhere around there -- somebody came up with some dynamite caps, and I don't know who. And we would make real hand grenades. Kind of stupid if you think of it, but these were very realistic and they made a lot of noise. We used to walk to school -- it was around three or four blocks. The U Tree Inn was where Harford Mutual is now. We used to cut through there. We'd cut through Wheeler's
KEITHLEY 6
Lumber Yard. Wheeler's Lumber Yard was behind the Presbyterian Church, and we used to cut up through there. We used to go through that lumber yard and play in the lumber, for which we were chased out every time.
DB: [laughs]
HK: Fortunately nobody was ever hurt. But Chief Mack only he wasn't a chief then -- used to be the crossing guard out there occasionally. He'd escort us across the street. Most of the time there wasn't anybody. That was in the later years. We'd walk to school. We went home for lunch, and we'd walk back. Most of the time, Joe Foster and Bill Fey -- we lived within a block of each other, so we hung out together. Joe is actually four days older than I am, which he never let me forget.
DB: [laughs]
HK: But anyhow, basically we entertained ourselves. We played football or hide & seek -- these kind of things. There wasn't any parks and recreation. We didn't do -- at that time I would say a lot of exploring around town. Yes, we might walk up town. But we didn't go out in the other neighborhoods or towns. We stayed in our own neighborhood primarily. We played ball. And we played army and we rode our
bicycles. You know, this kind of thing. It was probably a great time to grow up in Bel Air.
Probably one of the best times.
DB: This was in the early 1950s? HK: Well, the forties.
DB: Late forties and early fifties?
HK: Yes. Late forties. I would say in the thirties and forties. Bel Air was a real small town. Almost everybody knew everybody. Which had its advantages and disadvantages. You couldn't do anything wrong because if you did you got told on. You got home before you did. But you also watched out for them. Because the people knew you. There wasn't a lot of traffic. You could cross Main Street or Bond Street without looking because you could hear a car coming. And you could ride your bike safely -- even as a kid
-- because people watched out for you. It was a sleepy little town. Now, of course, as we grew up to be teenagers in the late forties -- 1946, 1947, 1948 -- all we wanted to do was get out of Bel Air. [laughs]
DB: [laughs]
HK: Because there wasn't anything to do. Bel Air had no
-- there was one movie.
DB: One movie house.
HK: It had maybe two features a week or one feature a week. So there wasn't anything to do. You went to the movies, you were finished for the week.
DB: [laughs] What about soda fountains and things like that?
HK: We hung out primarily, I guess, at Richardson's Drug
Store, although we used to go to they had a soda fountain, too.
DB: Were they the only two?
because
HK: They were the only two. Well, the drive-ins.
Rubin's Drive-In. We used to hang out at Rubin's Drive-In some, too. But basically, I guess, we hung out in town at Richardson's Drug Store.
DB: And they didn't chase you out of there for being a rowdy bunch of teenagers? [laughs]
HK: Well, we weren't rowdy. We'd sit there, and we slowly bought our nickel Cokes and drank a lot of Coke sometimes, and stayed there for a little while. But then it was a changing group, too, because some of us would stay longer than others, and we'd get together and break-up and go out and walk around and come back. This kind of thing. But I don't think we were rowdy. I don't remember being rowdy. And we could stand in front of the drug store, too, and watch the girls walk down the street -- or people --
and talk to them. Other peers -- associates, friends, whatever -- would walk by. Sometimes they'd stop, and sometimes they were going some place and keep going. The biggest night in town, of course, was Friday and Saturday nights. Saturday night was probably the biggest night. Main Street was pretty crowded on Saturday nights.
DB: What were people doing on Saturday nights? HK: Shopping.
DB: Shopping?
HK: Yes. Because Main Street was stores. DB: Clothing stores?
HK: Well, clothing stores, five & ten, grocery stores
this kind of thing. You see news reels or movies or whatever on stores that are -- they showed one where people used to walk in, and the guy behind a counter gets stuff off the shelf -- this was Bel Air. [laughs]
DB: Right.
HK: You got waited on. There was the A&P store up there. Mr. Patton was the manager. It had regular
, and you didn't go in and do your own shopping. They waited on you and brought your groceries. Today it would never work because there are too many people in [laughs] I
worked at the Acme. I started there, I think, in 1947, as a checker. I think I worked there -- I don't know maybe three months, and I went in the Service. But Main Street -- when I was a little kid on Main Street, there was Price, which was a clothing store. Later on it became Lizzy Nagel, and I think they were a fine store for televisions and this kind of thing. But Main Street was loaded with stores. had a grocery store on there.
DB: Where was that? What block was that on?
HK: Georgetown are souvenirs. DB: There was a grocery store there?
HK: Grace's Grocery Store for years. Of course, The Hub was there, and next door was Walker's Five & Ten.
DB: I remember those.
HK: Harford Hardware is now on the corner of Main and Pennsylvania Avenues. Wayne Dennis was the manager of that. We used to go there and by BBs for our BB guns, or by a BB gun. But there were a lot of stores. Carlton's was down on Main Street -- on South Main Street.
DB: What was that?
HK: That was a ladies clothing store. We didn't go in there. We walked past it many times, but we didn't go in. Next to that -- I don't know what was in
there before Haynes Shoe Store, but Haynes had a shoe store in 1947, 1948, 1949. He sold Buster Brown. He was from Baltimore and he had a shoe store in there. And, of course, of Portland Hardware. But it was back then, who was there. I don't remember going in there a lot to by BBs and so forth. I think we might have
been it.
DB: [laughs]
HK: Bob
in there. Wayne Dennis put up with
went into a lot of , like
tools or nails or screws and stuff. It was the own town hardware store. You know, it had a big old rack up there with nails and screws and things.
Everything was out and open.
DB: This was where? At Main?
HK: That's where the Hankins Building is now, up there, across from the court house, beside the county office building. In other words, that's the Hankins Building. You know that red brick building, where
Jewelers is, and the printers. On the corner of Main and Cortland.
DB: Oh, yes. That's the Clark Turner Building, I believe.
HK: Okay. Clark Turner. It's in that building.
DB:
HK:
Right.
That was , which later became Portland Hardware, and they moved it later here. But beside Richardson's Drug Store used to be Koppel's Shoe Repair.
DB: Before Beta Shoe. Or on the other side?
HK: On the other side. Where the podiatrists are now, was Richardson's Drug Store. And right beside that was a little store there called Koppel's Shoe Shine, and they did shoe repair. And thing.
His daughter, I think -- Molly Koppel -- I went to school with. And there were just a lot of little stores. We had Rexall Store. Mr. had a cut-
rate store. Whatever kind of thing up on Main Street, around where
he used to be is
in there, and he had a fire or something, and he moved down where roughly -- I don't know who is in there now. But Johnson's Furniture. Johnson was down there. It was around the Goodwill Store -- in that vicinity.
DB: Oh, yes.
HK: It was a little yellow house. And he had a cut-rate store in there. It had a yard, a tree the whole thing. You walked into really a house that he converted into a little store.
DB:
HK:
Like general merchandise?
Well, he sold cigarettes and medicines, and probably ice cream and pop. You know, this kind of thing.
DB: And that was Mr. Fink's store?
HK: Yes. Johnny Fink -- his son -- he lives down here on Bel Air Road.
DB: Oh, okay.
HK: But Bel Air was, I would say, a good place to grow up. I think probably most memories except for spankings, were probably happy memories. [laughs]
DB: [laughs]
HK: We didn't get in trouble per se.
kids had
bike wrecks and we got hurt, and we probaBly got in fights, I guess. Probably more at school than any place else. But as far as getting into trouble trouble, no.
DB: Do you remember Howard Park being built and what
that was like?
HK: No, I really don't, and I'll tell you why. Because I got out of the Service, came home, and the Korean war started. Paul Matthews -- I was running around at that time probably with Paul Matthews and Rich Terry and Phil Glen. I don't remember who else at that time. It wasn't Joe Foster or Bill Fenningman.
I was
growing up. A different group of
people. Willard Smithson, George Hopkins. And we used to go to the Coliseum in Baltimore and watch wrestling or go to the movies or these kinds of things. And they all got drafted for Korea. I didn't have to go because I'd already been in. But I got lonesome, and like an idiot, I went out and enlisted. [laughs]
DB: [laughs]
HK: So I went overseas in January of 1952. And I came home in June of 1954. And when I left here in
52
51.
actually, I left Bel Air, so to speak, in But I was home on leave you know, passes -
whatever. I could walk down Main Street and say
llo em.
to everybody by sight -- by name, most of Not everybody, but most everybody by name.
en I came home in 1954 and walked down Main
reet, I didn't know anybody.
that right?
didn't know a soul. I walked down Main Street and
dn't see anybody I knew.
had changed that much in two years?
ght. And they built Howard Park. And that was
sically what it was.
ey were all new residents from Howard Park that u had never seen before.
HK: And the county was golden. Right. The county was golden. Howard Park was not here when I left. It was an overnight -- to me -- what happened to Bel Air?
DB: Within two years Howard Park was built and you came home and the population had expanded.
HK: Not this part of it -- the lower section. And the population had started expanding, and I didn't know anybody. Well, yes, in the stores I knew people.
But they had a store. But people on the street I didn't recognize.
DB: How did that make you feel?
HK: Well, I don't know how I felt. You want to know the truth? I don't remember how I felt. Astounded. I do remember that. But it was hard to believe that the county had changed that the town had changed that much in that short period of time. So, of course, I went into stores and said hello to people I knew. You know, this kind of thing.
DB: They were still around.
HK: They were still there. It's rather amazing that the people I went to high school with and graduated
of them are still around. I don't see them often, but they're still here in the county.
There's a lot left, naturally. But, then, there's
an awful lot still here, too. But it was rather a shock. You know, like talking about that memories. We were in Boy Scouts, and they had a
thing in the paper not long ago about Boy Scots some fifty years ago. God! I knew everybody's name but one. I didn't know this one guy. I think his name was White. I didn't remember him at all. Everybody else I knew. I remembered all of the other people.
He was the only one I did not remember. No picture nothing. It just didn't come. Of course, fifty years ago is a long time.
DB: Right. Right.
HK: And he could have been in the troop for a short period of time because we did have a lot of military people that went to school here. Because Aberdeen, too, were big during the war. A lot of people there. And they all didn't go to Aberdeen or Edgewood School. They'd come to Bel Air a lot of times. I don't know why. Probably where they lived. Where they had housing. But it was one of those things. George Miller -- he used to have a farm down here, back on Patterson Mill Road, and we used to have Boy Scout meetings over at the fire house. The fire house then was on Main Street, where used to be -- that alley, coming down
Main Street. Forty-something North Main Street. In that general area. There's at-shirt shop or something there now, or there was at-shirt shop. I don't know what's in there now. I don't walk down Main Street now. But as you're coming down Main Street, you come past Lutz', and past the old church.
DB: Right.
HK: And on down, and then there's an alley that goes in.
It goes out, and comes DB: Right.
HK: That building right on that side -- that used to be the fire house, and then it was Hollander's, which was an automotive store. And above that was a room where we had our Boy Scout meetings.
DB: Okay. Was that when you were a teenager, or younger?
HK: Boy Scouts you had to be twelve, so probably twelve
to fourteen or fifteen years old. I think we moved out of there, and might have gone over -- right about where Strawberry Basket is or was. Actually, that's not there anymore now. The antique place is now there. There was an old stone Methodist church that was closed, and we used to have our meetings in the basement of that. Only it was a Methodist
church then, I think.
DB: That church isn't there anymore? HK: Oh, no. is there now. DB: I don't remember that.
HK: You see, they the house that I was born in, and I told them that if I ever became rich, I was going to buy Bel Air and tear it all down.
DB: [laughs]
HK:
in the first place. just destroy the town."
"I'll fix you. I'll
DB: [laughs]
HK: Bel Air has had a lot of changes.
DB: A lot of changes. That's right.
HK: And not necessarily for the better. Not necessarily for the better. Not totally for the worst, but not
necessarily for the better. People don't know
people. really,
People don't know their neighbors now,
to a large degree. Including me. I know my
imminent neighbors -- immediate neighbors. But, you
know, you get ten houses down the street I don't
know are.
who they are. And I don't know who their kids And it used to be you did. But you don't
anymore.
DB: Is that because there are so many houses and so many
people? Or because of our lifestyles that have
changed?
HK: It's probably our lifestyles. Probably television has got a lot to do with it. People don't go outside like they did. We didn't have anything to do but listen to radio or play checkers with Mom. You know, that's not a lot of fun.
DB: [laughs]
HK: So we spent our time outside, and you spent your time mainly with your neighbors because you were outside. And children had a tendency to go -- like my wife gets upset sometimes when kids go running through the yard. Well, we ran through everybody's yards. So I don't get too upset about that. Yes, if they break something -- that's different. But just running through the yards -- I mean, we did it when we were kids. People don't go for that too much anymore, though. People don't really like that, mostly. And when I was a kid growing up, we never thought anything about it. We didn't go through people's gardens. You know, we respected property. But to go through somebody's yard -- hey, it was just like the street. What's the difference? But, of course, it was a smaller community, and you did know the people, too, you see?
DB: Yes. It could have been your best friends, or
whatever.
HK: Right. And we did a lot of playing in each other"s houses. You know, you could name everybody on your street, who their kid were, what they did, where they want to church -- you know, the whole thing.
But it was a closer community then, too. And also, probably, a more stable community because people didn't move around. People move now. They upgrade.
You know,
DB: Right.
houses, and move.
HK: They get transferred kind of thing. And
jobs or whatever -- and this people move in. And
people are not and I guess I'm the same way, too -- people are not as friendly as they were.
DB: Yes.
HK: You might meet somebody on the street, and if you know that they live there you say, "Hi." But you keep going. You don't talk to them. You say, "Hi," and keep going.
DB: [laughs]
HK: And probably a lot of it is lifestyle, because we're busier. Or supposedly we're busier.
DB: I think we are. Yes.
HK: Well, it's all the labor saving devices we have that we have to keep up with. (laughs]
DB: [laughs] Right.
HK: You see, we both , you know? What they kept saying is the rotary motor. And those people who have a power motor were rich. We had push mowers. Real Craftsman push mowers. the grass. But there wasn't the things to do that there are to do today. People look at the lifestyle that we had then today and say, "My God, those people were poor." And, I guess, we were, if you stop and think about all the things that people have today that they take for granted. Which we didn't have.
You see, when my parents moved down on Broadway, it still had a , and they in 1933. It started in 1937 or 1938 somewhere in that area -- they put sewer lines in and water lines in down there. They had a water line. They had one water line that ran from Gordon and Williams Street, down there, to serve about three houses. You see, that was all open. 's Funeral Home. There wasn't anything down there except a couple of houses. And the old house. And that was it. There wasn't anything else down there. And then later on, the factory was built there. That used to be a tomato field. Mr. Matthews had corn he raised in there and sold. And where 's
- - -
KEITHLEY 22
Funeral Home was, was a dirty old field we used to play in sometimes -- not all the time. But it wasn't level, so we didn't play ball in there. We played ball in the yards or whatever.
to the school, and play over there. We used to go where the school -- the school used to be open all summer. Janitors or whatever were in there, and we used to go and shoot basketball. And we were allowed to go in and do that. That way you didn't have to go ask permission. We'd just go in the gym.
It was open. We went in, shot basketball. But we
didn't do anything except shot basketbal1, left, and
went
home. But it wasn't like the school was -- you
can't
DB: Right.
come in here without permission.
Nowadays --
HK: We didn't vandalize it, either.
DB: Right. You knew they'd find out who it was, huh?
[laughs]
HK: Sure.
[laughs] You know, people talk about going
to the schools, you see? Where the Board of
Education is now was the elementary school. And
where the elementary school is was the old high
school. down.
That was the elementary school they tore And they tore down the
elementary school. And I said, "No, they didn't.
They tore the high school down." You see, to her it was elementary school because she was an outsider.
It was really the high school.
DB: Right.
HK: Because we just knew from one building to the other. And we only had eleven grades. Seven elementary and four high school.
DB: When did they build the new high school out here?
HK: High School, I think was built in 1951 or 1952 somewhere. I graduated in 1947. And they had a graduating class. Let's see. I think my brother was supposed to graduate maybe in 1951. He was three years behind me. 1950 or 1951. And he caught twelve years. He graduated. [laughs] So he's three years younger than I am, and so he got the twelve years, and he got an extra year. I guess it was 1950 or 1951. They had a very small graduating class because that was only transfers in
[end of side one]
DB: the Service in 1951. And that was for Korea.
HK; That was for Korea. Right. I was in Korea. And then I cil,file home, and I was discharged. I got out
three months early. I went in in October of 1951, and anybody who was over there they gave you a chance to get out three months early, and so I got out in June of 1954. I came home and I had a couple of jobs looking for a job. Then I went to work for a company known as Retail Credit
now. And I worked for them for fifteen years, but I also worked in my dad's store part-time.
DB: And your dad's store was Keithley's Jewelers. HK: Keithley's Jewelers.
DB: That was on Main Street?
HK: Yes. I worked in there, fixing clocks. Dad was a watch maker, clock maker, jeweler. And fixing watches and repairing jewelry was about all he could do himself. The clocks got pushed back they didn't get done. Once in a while he would get something done, but he was always so busy he didn't get it done. That was all. And so I decided -- I had worked on clocks as a kid, and I decided that
teach me how to fix clocks right, if
he's willing to do that, and he said he was. And so he taught me how to repair clocks, and I started to call these people up and asked if they wanted their clocks fixed, and some of their clocks had been in there twenty years.
DB:
HK:
DB:
In your father's shop?
And they were still waiting for him. Oh! [laughs]
HK: And they said, "Sure." I don't know. It took me
about two years to get him all caught up without even taking any in. He had that many clocks hanging around in there.
DB: Wow.
HK: There were clocks in there that had dust on them that deep.
DB: Oh, my God.
HK: You know, they hadn't been moved. Just sitting on a shelf.
DB: Well, people had a lot of patience in those days.
[laughs]
HK: Yes, I think they did. But anyhow, I worked in there, and then I came down with a
disease, and I couldn't work on the other job. And
so I went in the store and worked on clocks all the time. And waited on customers. Until Dad closed in 1976.
DB: Now, where was the store?
HK: 50 North Main Street. Diagonally across from the Armory.
DB: Oh, across from the Armory.
HK:
DB:
It was where
The Goodwill Building?
HK: No. The Insurance Agency was in there, and I forgot
what's in there now. thing is?
DB: Yes.
HK: Next door to that. he was in the
You know where the Bon-Bon Dog
A chiropractor was upstairs, and
He moved down there
in 1946, and before that he was on Office Street.
DB: Who? Your father?
HK: My dad's jewelry store. Yes. He was on Office Street, down around where Johnson Company is. Up this way a little bit. He rented it from Johnson. He was there -- he started the store down there, I think, in about 1928. Somewhere in that area, in the middle of the Depression.
DB: And it was just a jewelry store then?
HK: Right. It basically started off as watch repair.
He went to Bonus Technical School and became a watch
maker, and he took six months of jewelry repair, and
he came down and opened up the store. He worked in
Washington, D.C. for a while, learning his trade.
And once he felt he was confident to do work
a master watch maker, he was learning more. After
he got out of school, he was still learning. He
came here and opened up his store, and basically started off as watch repair, and he added jewelry slowly, over the years. In 1946 he moved down on Main Street because they built the post office up this way the town was moving that way.
But the town didn't move that way.
DB: [laughs]
[laughs]
HK: The town really stayed almost in a couple of blocks.
It really did. And then Mr. Preston -- he used to have a store where the Red Fox is now.
DB: I remember that.
HK: Right. And then they moved out the other way. DB: [laughs]
HK: You know, literally walking to
Street. I was Preston's son.
Anyhow, I was talking to him the other night. We used to go into Preston's and buy model airplanes for ten cents. Balsam wood with rubber bands. And we used to go up there and get balsam airplanes.
They would be ten cents a piece. Had to buy glue, and we used to build airplanes. buy the glue, kids sniff them.
DB: [laughs]
HK: It's a changed world, you know? It really is. DB: Yes.
HK: I mean, we never even thought of that. You know, the worst thing growing up was probably booze, and we weren't allowed to drink, so you didn't. I mean, that was all. We didn't do a lot of things. That doesn't mean we didn't want to. Bel Air the kids growing up in Bel Air primarily, I think not all kids, but most of them -- were pretty naive. I think we were. We led a sheltered life. We probably did. But there wasn't television. There was radio. I don't remember much about listening to news on the radio. You know, one man's
family in the shadow, and Things like this. , the All American Boy. I do remember the parents coming outside, and I had know idea what day it was on, but anyhow, about World War II started. I don't remember VE Day, but I remember VJ Day because I was in Lancaster. I was going to engraving school in Lancaster, and I was in the movies, and the movies stopped, and , and they came out and announced that the war was over, and people were going crazy. Kissing everybody and hugging everybody, and jumping up and down. The street cars were stopped, and the traffic was stopped. I was like, "The war is over! So what'?" But then I wasn't involved in it, either. I was
fifteen years old. And that changed your perspective.
DB: Right.
HK: If you're in the military and you're going overseas, a chance of getting killed -- this kind of thing.
You see, I was like three years later having to go.
DB: Right.
HK: And so that changes your perspective. It does. DB: You were in engraving school in Lancaster?
HK:
Yes, I went to engraving.
Technical School and took
DB: That was in Lancaster?
HK: Right. For three summers I didn't take summertime off. I went to engraving school in the summertime, and took I didn't like it, but probably because I was forced to do it. Children resent what they're forced to do.
DB: Wasn't your father interested in having you do jewelry work?
HK:
He wanted me engravings.
the first step was to take
DB: Oh, I see.
HK: Then the plans were to go on and take jewelry repair, and take watch making, and follow in his footsteps. And he envisioned a chain of stores.
DB:
HK:
Oh, is that right?
Right. And he found out that it was not going to happen. [laughs] I was never interested in repairing watches. I hated watches.
DB: [laughs]
HK: Absolutely hated watches. And I still don't like watches. All a watch does is tell me what time it is and just run, and that's it. I did learn to like
well, I actually love old clocks. I find it very interesting to be able to take an antique clock
even like a wooden ruben clock, which is a hundred and sixty or seventy years old, and repair it, and it will still do the same job that it did then -- as
year.
DB: Yes.
HK: But, you see, people don't remember the old watches.
The old mechanical wind-up watches -- you had to wind them every day. And people used to
every day. Because they were all
So if it's off a minute in a day, that's seven minutes a week. Now, when they came out with automatic winds, they had to make them a little more accurate because you don't wind your watch for a week, and you look at it and all of a sudden, you're five minutes slow or fast -- that's a lot of time.
DB: Right.
HK: So they had to make time keeping a little better.
And they did. They were still off. They still were not on time keeping. People -- they're watches used to spend a lot of time in the shop. People used to break a lot of watches. They got dirty and they had to be cleaned. But they had a lot of holes in them. You know, around the stem -- it had a pretty big hole in there, and a lot of dirt went in there.e
DB: Right.
HK: They used to get them wet, they got rusty, and they used to drop them and they'd break the staff. The main spring used to break. You see, a lot of things
used to happen to watches. They'd break the crystal. They were all glass. No plastic. They'd break the crystal.
DB: Nowadays you just buy a new one.
HK: Yes. Well, back then -- you see, I don't know
price-wise, how watches compare nowadays. Back then you probably couldn't buy a watch for less than
$29.95 or $39.95 for a reasonable watch. And as I remember, that's
DB: Yes.
HK: Even in the forties and fifties. In the forties you could buy They weren't available.
DB: You could not buy a watch during the war?
HK: You could not buy a watch. Dad wasn't even taking -
- he was so backlogged during the war -- I can remember this. He wouldn't take anything in for six months. "Come back in six months and we'll see where we are then." He wouldn't take anything. He had six months work facing him that he couldn't get done.
DB: For watch repair and jewelry repair?
HK: Right. Watch repair, mostly. Because you couldn't buy them -- you had to fix them. And a lot of people I want have a
watch, or this kind of thing. So they probably got
theirs done ahead of time, maybe, which might not have been right, but then again, they probably needed it, too.
DB: Right.
HK: The amazing thing is -- I read some place in 1941 there were thirty-three thousand watch makers in the United States. 1941. I think in 1987 or somewhere in that area, there were ten thousand watch makers in the United States. Did I tell you
DB: Oh, sure. The quartz movement, I guess.
HK: If you go out today and try and find a good watch maker -- really, they're hard to find. You see, they're scarce. There are a good many clock makers left. I don't know how good they are. Some are good and some aren't. But basically, I think -- you know, when I fix a clock I fix it right or I don't fix it. Dad's theory was always to fix things right and stand behind it, and I always did that, too.
It's a funny thing, you know? You don't ever want to be your parent.
DB: [laughs]
HK: And one day you look in the mirror, and you are, okay? [laughs] That's true.
DB: So you worked with your father for a good while.
HK: Yes. About fifteen years.
DB:
HK:
Repairing watches? Clocks. I fixed clocks.
DB: And then your father closed his shop in 1976?
HK: Yes. He moved home, and so did I. And he died in 1978. He had a heart attack and died. And I had to go in there and put about a hundred watches together. I didn't fix the watches. I put them together and gave the watch back. That's it. And there were things that needed parts. They either had to be made or try and find them, or whatever. I put them back together and got rid of them. I wasn't I fixed clocks at home. And then I got into building clocks. And I like that a whole lot better than fixing clocks. Make my own designs on a clock.
them. If they don't want to buy it, it's okay, too. I don't build clocks to sell clocks.
DB: It's a hobby for you.
HK: If somebody comes in and says, "I want you to build me a clock." I'll say, "What do you want'?" I'll build them a clock. If somebody sees a clock I got and they want to buy it -- fine, I'll sell it to them. But, no. I don't build clocks. I eat business and say, "Oh, I can sell these or whatever." I build clocks for my own fun and edification, or whatever.
DB: I see.
HK: Ego, or whatever you want to say. It give me something to do, and I like it, and I enjoy it. I don't always like to build the same thing. I like to build things a little different. So really, every clock is slightly different than another one.
DB: Do you deal with just the works, or do you build cabinets, too'?
HK: I build the cabinets. I don't build the movement.
I buy mechanical and this kind of thing. I just do the woodwork. I build the cases.
DB: Grandfather clocks and mantle or shelf clocks?
HK: Mostly mantle or schoolhouse type clocks. Probably more mantles than schoolhouses because mantles are a
little easier to build. Schoolhouses are harder. I never had the desire to build a grandfather clock.
Number one, it takes a long time.
DB: [laughs]
HK: And number two, the only one I like to build -- I don't think I could do it. I don't have the tools for it.
DB: You don't have to be a woodworker to do that.
HK: Well, yes. You got to have specific tools to do it.
You have to have a shaker, and a few things like that. It's a lot of money for the tools. I was going to build a clock one time, and when I found out it was going to cost me about twelve thousand dollars for the tools to be able to build the clock, I decided I didn't really want to build one after all.
DB: [laughs] Do you repair clocks?
HK: Yes.
DB: Do people call you and say, "Mr. Keithley, please repair my clock?"
HK: Yes. And I still fix a few. You know, twenty or
something. I don't do house calls anymore. I quit
It's a funny thing. After you've been fixing clocks as long as I have, there are clocks that are hard to fix. I know those clocks -- there's no doubt about it. But then again, if you use a little common sense and the skills that you've learned and this kind of thing -- they're not really that difficult to fix. It's time-consuming. It's like some guy once told me, "Oh, they're not hard to take apart." I said, "Oh, no. I take them apart and put them back together." [laughs]
DB: [laughs]
HK: I said, "Putting them back together is the secret." [laughs]
DB: What kind of clock is it in the court house tower?
How does that work?
HK: I have no idea. DB: It must be huge.
HK: I think it's probably electric, isn't it? DB: Probably.
HK: Did they restore to mechanical?
DB: I don't know.
HK:
DB:
You see, I don't know if they have --
I thought maybe they asked you to do it. [laughs]
HK: In all probability, it had mechanical movement at one time. What's in there now, I have no idea.
I'm here occasionally. But what's in the court house now, I have no idea. I don't even know what's in Harford Mutual. That's probably electric, I guess. You see, all the companies that manufacture all the old mechanicals are gone. All the companies in the United States are manufactured clocks are very nearly gone.
DB: Is that right?
HK: Chelsea is still in business, but a Chelsea probably the cheapest Chelsea is about nine hundred dollars. That's why they're gone.
DB: Wow!
HK: So Boston clock companies I think they still make banjo clocks. They sell for about six thousand dollars. There are not a lot of people who would buy that. Hershedi a guy by the name of Klein got -- they only make two grandfather clocks. This style and this style. Sarne clock, but the cases are different. And they're only twenty thousand dollars a piece.
DB: [laughs]
HK:
, but clocks are made -- there are a lot of clock companies that make cases by the movements from Germany. Or the movements from Japan, or whatever it is. Most of the ones that
come up from Japan -- the case and everything -- are made in Japan. And Hamilton makes clocks now. But they don't use solid woods, and they buy Japanese or German movements and put Mr. Danaher down in Falston used to make clocks. And his thing was that he used all hardwood, which is the solid woods.
DB: Right.
HK: Except the back, which was plywood. Well, that's okay because the basic case is solid wood. It's not pressed wood or cardboard or whatever. He bought
German
can almost tell
He made nice clocks. You pick it up, and it's heavy
You pick up the others and they're not.
DB: You repaired some of is clocks?
HK: Oh, yes. I have one downstairs now that needs to be fixed.
DB:
HK:
DB:
HK:
DB:
Now, he's out of business now?
He's been out of business for fifteen years or more. Fifteen years?
Yes. At least.
They made clocks locally, and, I guess, sold a lot of clocks here in Harford County. Do you see them around?
HK: They sold them all over the country. Mr. Daniher
was a wood worker. He made telephone boxes for the telephone. And styrofoam and all this other crap cam along, and they didn't need him anymore. And so he looked around what to do, and I think
Sidwell got him interested in building clocks, and he started building clocks. He went for little magnets that had standard equipment, had a national sales force. And those people started selling, and found him salesmen, and he sold clocks all over the United States. He had a good business.
DB: Selling his clocks or other clocks? HK: His clocks. The ones he built.
DB: He made clocks?
HK: He built the cases, and bought movements and put them in there. Right. They built a lot of clocks. They unionized, and then he closed it. And then it was sold. But anyhow, he eventually went out of business. I think LaRosa, North Carolina came up and bought most of the spare parts and cases and stuff that they had.
so forth.
DB: So there are probably still a lot of Deniger clocks all over Harford County.
HK: around. Yes, there are. And, I guess over a period of time, that there were more, I have no idea whether they will or not, but they probably will -- as time goes on, because antique clocks sometimes bring commanding prices. Antique watches
do, too. But there are not many of them that bring
super, than
super prices. But you can get more for them
DB: Maybe I should go to a sale and get a Deniger clock,
and I'll have a local unique.
HK: Right. Right. But you have to wait. You have to
be patient. Bel Air was an interesting place to
grow bored
up in. I'm sure that as a teenager, we were out of our minds many times in Bel Air.
DB: [laughs]
HK: Because there wasn't anything to do. But we used to
go to movies, or go down to drive-ins in Baltimore -
- this kind of thing.
DB: Was
HK: No.
DB: Did
that a pretty long trip to Baltimore back then?
you go down Route 1, I guess?
HK: Well, you know, the amazing thing about it -- the
only new highways that have been built in my lifetime in Harford County is Route 40 and 95. And Route 40 had to be built before World War II. Probably 1939. 1938, even. Because was built over there in 1939. Route 40 had to be there. So 197, 1938 -- somewhere in there -- Route 40 was built. So the only new highway really, since I was of driving age, is 95. And look what they've done to the population of Bel Air. You still have to drive the same route. But you see, we used to drive to Baltimore and never see a car.
DB: Wow.
HK: Actually made better time then than you do now, even though the cars were old. Because there wasn't any traffic.
DB: Right.
HK: And there was a whole lot less red lights. DB: You went down Route 1, through Cainsville? HK: Well, no. We mostly went down Harford Road. DB: Oh, you took Harford Road?
HK: Yes. We normally went down Harford Road. We drove
down Bel Air Road sometimes
But there was no beltway, you see?
DB: Yes.
into Baltimore.
HK: Harford Road, to us, led to more movies. Depending
on which movie we were going to. If we were going to the movies on Harford Road, we took Harford Road. There used to be a drive-in down there, about where the beltway is now, called Willards. We'd stop in there and get hamburgers and milkshakes. On into Hamilton was the Hot Shop. to thee movies in Hamilton. If we were going to the movies downtown, we went down Bel Air Road, and cut over I guess Park, or whatever it is, and went over to 33rd Street, and then over to one of the one-way streets or North Charles, or whatever, and then shot right downtown. There were movies down there -- I guess on Lexington Street.
Essentially The Hippodrome was down on Street, and we went down there to those
movies.
DB: How often did you do that? Was that a big trip to take?
HK: No, not really. We probably did it -- maybe once a week or once every two weeks. In all probability.
DB: You'd all get together and somebody would drive down?
HK: Yes. Well, we'd have dates. This was in 1947, 1948, 1949. It normally would be double-dates. We had two bucks.
DB: [laughs]
HK: Fifty cents for gas. Movies were less than a dollar, and you could get a hamburger and milkshake for fifty cents. So you didn't need a lot of money to go out.
DB: Right.
HK: And, you know, each one of you had two bucks -- that was enough. On a date you had four dollars -- you could go on a double-date.
DB: So if there wasn't much to do in Bel Air, you just drove to Baltimore.
HK: Yes. And there was not a lot to do in
There really wasn't. On Sundays they used to have football games up here in Hill Road, out there in the field. It was like an athletic association, and they had a football conference.
Our high school people. They used to have softball over behind the old high school and elementary school, and various merchants sponsored softball.
Clothes cleaners had a team. There were a number of outfits that had teams in there, and they used to go down there in the summertime, in the evening, and they'd be playing softball.
DB: Where was this?
HK: This was on the diamond, on Lee Street. The school
DB:
HK:
DB:
is in there now. Right where that elementary school is. That was the diamond on the track. And they used to play softball there. It had lights.
Oh.
We were up-to-date. [laughs]
HK: It took them a long time to get the money for
lights, but they finally got money for lights. That
was The
in the fifties. They had softball down there. forties -- probably 1949 it started. It could
have that
been 1948. I don't remember exactly. But in area. When I went to high school, there was no
football Baseball football.
in high school. It was too dangerous. was in. And track. But there was no
Football is hot today. They had football
out.
not
We used to play football as kids, but it was
organized. But colleges had football, and they
had And
this -- Big Red, I think they called Bel Air. they were men that were playing football.
College, and other men who were not say, they
went to college, but played football. Like football
-- they used to play football. They played down on
the high school grounds sometimes, and they played
at the sometimes. I guess in 1949 and 1950, we went to every there was in Baltimore. We
used to ride the bus to Baltimore. six home games. There were plenty of
seats because they lost every game.e DB: [laughs]
HK: sitting down. But we didn't care, you know? It was something to do.
DB: Right.
HK: That's all. It was something to do. I think in 1950 or 1951 is when television started.
DB: That changed everything, right?
HK: That did. That changed everything. People had plenty of things to do. We'd sit in front of the tube and watch that.
DB: [laughs] Yes. I guess that made a big difference in the lifestyle of every town in the country.
HK: Yes, I think it did. I think that probably was the most profound event in the history of our nation.
Transportation has been one, too. But I think that was the biggest one, in changing our lifestyle, in the fact that we don't know people, and we don't do things that we used to do. I don't think there's probably a sense of community as there once was.
There used to be a strong sense of community. And I don't think that exists anymore. In some people, yes. But I don't think in most people. You see,
some of these -- and I were talking. I said, "I don't really feel a strong sense of community to Bel Air anymore than I did feel." I said, "Why?" I said, "Probably because I don't know people."
That's number one. And number two, it isn't Bel Air anymore, as far as I'm concerned, you see? It's changed drastically. I had to wear a brace when I was down at this office one day, and a doctor was there, and they were talking. They both live here in Harford County, and they were talking about some
housing that was going to be put up, and they were against it. They said, "How do you feel about it?" I said, "I don't know?" They said, "What do you mean you don't know? It's going to make traffic worse, it's going to do this and that." I said, "Hey, you ruined it for me. I want to ruin it for you, too.
DB: [laughs]
HK: I said, "Make it worse." DB: Make it worse! [laughs]
HK: And they said, "You're terrible!" I said, "Wel1,
no." Everybody -- I've seen it in a thousand interviews. Everybody said they wanted to be the last one to in Bel Air and lock the door. And I think that's true. But I unfortunately can't
do that, you see? I said, "We locked the door a long time ago. And nobody would have got in." And I said, "If you probably think about the old county residents -- they all out." Everybody is gone. And I just can't do that. I understand why the county went the way it did because a lot of the parent shad farms. When the kid got the farm, he saw how hard the old man worked, and he wanted nothing to do with it. And I understand that. My dad wanted me to be a jeweler, and I saw how he worked, and I said, "I'm not working like that." You know? He worked until probably two o'clock every morning. He would come home and go to bed.
He might get in bed, say, three o'clock. Get up at nine o'clock or nine-thirty. Mom would open the store. He'd get in the store at ten or ten-thirty. The reason he worked like that -- he'd be in the store all day. He'd come home at, say, six o'clock, have dinner, lay down and take a nap, and, say, seven o'clock or seven-thirty he went back to the store and worked until two o'clock in the morning, because that's when he got the work done. Okay?
And I said, "I'm not working like that!" He worked Saturdays, he worked Sundays. He worked seven days a week. During the war, he used to work all night.
And he did some work for in Baltimore.
End of Interview